| (12/09/11) "The less you had to do with causing the crash, the more you're having to pay" to deal with its consequences, TUC general secretary Brandan Barber noted as he laid out the background against which delegates were meeting for the first trade union congress in London since 1902. With the country facing the deepest cuts since the 1920s, he said, "this is not just austerity, but austerity on speed." Affiliated unions vowed to meet the challenge posed by government's impossible attempt to cut its way out of recession, passing a comprehensive composite motion on developing and campaigning for an alternative economic strategy. Noting that "low-paid workers providing essential services in our communities" are suffering as their pay is cut, Ian Fleming of UNISON declared: "We know that there is a better way: not to cut, cut, cut but to stimulate the economy and grow jobs." Recalling that UNISON members at Scottish charity Quarriers had been forced to take strike action last week, Mr Fleming said that the effects of the government's attack were particularly acute in the community and voluntary sector, exposing government talk of a 'Big Society' taking up the slack from public-service cuts. The government's policies – favouring the banks that caused the crisis in the first place while attacking the living standards of middle and low-income families – need to be challenged and changed, congress declared. As Mr Barber noted: "This year we had a march for the alternative – in the coming years, let's build a movement for the alternative that cannot be ignored by politicians of any party." Turning to a contemporary theme expected to dominate debate at Congress House, the TUC general secretary warned: "Nowhere is our fight more urgent that when it comes to public-service pensions. All workers – all workers – deserve a decent pension." But as just one example of its desire to make ordinary people pay for the banks' mistakes, said Mr Barber, "the government's plans are not about making pensions more affordable, they are about making hard-pressed public service workers sacrifice their long term pension security for short-term deficit reduction." A Million Voices for Public Services Protect our pensions |